wordstew

This article is yet another disturbing example of blunted and unhelpful reporting in the CHI on the collapse of the profession. Kramnick and Cassuto frequently appear in the pages of the CHI and they both have asinine and clueless perspectives on the state of the profession. Kramnick looks out from the protection of his New Haven Tudor castle to offer commentary on the state of the job market that is about as informative as groundhog day. And Cassuto keeps deluding himself that misinformed ideas about work outside of academia have any currency or relevance to the various industries and institutions that he feels confident to pontificate about. It's all nonsense, and it's all an example of the lazy ease with which privileged academics assuage their guilt and culpability when they watch the young starve. Here's the situation as it currently stands: there are virtually no tenure-track jobs in English that a young scholar can obtain. Even the adjunct positions in literary studies are drying up. You wouldn't know it from the foolish nonsense posted on this web forum by uninformed people who are struggling to gain entry into these deluded places. But it's clear that people who have suffered these realities can admonish prospective students until they're blue in the face, and it will just make them feel that an opportunity--that doesn't exist anymore--is being denied to them. If Columbia was serious about addressing the fact that most of its prized PhDs will no longer find gainful employment in the academy, it would have to dramatically curtail the resources it puts into graduate education. And that's something that will continue to be met with deep resistance by the likes of Kramnick and Cassuto and their colleagues who will do anything to convince themselves that their genius can only be realized (and worshipped) in the graduate seminar full or eager disciples furiously studying for their under(or un)employment.

"I would say that 10 percent is certainly too low in describing their placement, but I also think wordstew is right to say that 87 percent is a gross exaggeration." On the basis of what knowledge do you think 10% is too low? Notice that last year's "placements" are missing altogether. We agree that the only fair and accurate way to do this is for a program to list every conferred doctorate and then indicate the placement (academic or otherwise for that person). But if that were to be done, it would be very grim. I can tell you with 100% certainty that not even 50% of graduates get tenure-track jobs three years out. This is my last post here because I'm not going to keep going back and forth about nihilism, trolling, etc. I understand the difficulty of applying to these programs and how competitive and stressful that work can be. I did it. I also understand the mentality--and the need--to rationalize participating in this with some modicum of hope that it will work out. I did it. I also understand the love for the work and the importance of it. I've done a lot of it. In my experience, most graduate students have not come to terms with what has happened to our profession, and again, it's probably because to confront the reality would make continuing this difficult work nearly impossible. I don't have to tell you about how challenging it can be. But I have more clarity now that I've seen this mess from a variety of angles. And what I have seen is that young scholars have been left out in the cold. It does not matter how good, capable, or promising we are as teachers and scholars. It simply does not matter to the tenured or the administrators that we will never have financial security, job security, or support for our work. That takes an extreme toll on a professional person who cares about their work. It has taken an extreme toll on me to be reminded again and again that my labor is nearly invisible and that it doesn't really matter to the people who financially benefit from it (students are a different story). I could give numerous personal anecdotes that would shock and appall, but it's all been documented by others in numerous monographs and Chronicle articles. Take Rutgers, for example, where the faculty make totally obscene salaries; you can look them up online. These people simply do not understand--they do not want to understand--what has happened to their profession. And many of their students do not really want to understand either because they desperately hope that they will be the exception--that they will get the job. Most of them will not, but one or two will. And what they'll discover is that they are still part of a system that grossly exploits adjunct colleagues and tries to rationalize that exploitation by 1) Denying the full extent of the devastation and 2) Assuming that they're better or more deserving in some way. To do otherwise would be to admit that your salary is made possible by an entire underclass of workers who are just as qualified but have no hope of economic or professional security. That's the reality I'm talking about, and I have a difficult time understanding why someone would choose to participate in that at this point knowing the full extent of how deeply the exploitation runs in academia and how little has been done to address it. Because of how these institutions work, there is simply nothing you will be able to do to advance your career. You will be stuck making peanuts with little to no benefits until you decide not to continue. Each year you will get older and each year your escape from being taken advantage of by your peers will become more and more insurmountable until 20 years have passed and you're left with no choice but to continue. Think I'm exaggerating? Instead of attending catered open houses and distinguished lecturer series, go find several humanities PhD adjuncts on your campus and have a frank conversation with them. To answer the other question about how a PhD proved to be a liability: The most important thing I've run into is the need for experience in whatever career track you want to enter. The people who did best when they graduated already had professional experience in the worlds they re-entered. I had told myself (and was told by others) that a PhD would be great for consulting, marketing, etc., but that's just nonsense talk by people who do not know. Maybe a PhD in economics is desirable for a consulting firm. I think that the doctorate does show your capacity for working hard and critical thinking, so it can be a good supplement to experience, but it does not make up for experience. And it can be awkward for bosses and supervisors who don't have a graduate degree and don't even understand what it means. This also depends a lot on the sector and the geographic market. In my experience, "versatile" is the last thing that comes to mind to describe this highly specialized credential. And the problem is that if you are really working toward a tenure-track job almost every ounce of your time and energy goes into your research and teaching. Looking back, I have no idea how someone is supposed to do a PhD and prepare for an alternate career at the same time unless they come from one that they can fall back on, which was the case for a number of my peers. Finally, I'll say that it breaks my heart to write all this. I think that this work is incredibly important, and I want to celebrate people who continue to demonstrate their interest and enthusiasm for it. But I think that it's unconscionable that the prestige and veneer of these programs continue to seduce people into thinking that there is a profession for them to join. My basic point--and others have made it better--is that the very idea a profession has become a falsehood. What that means is that most people who give years of their life to this pursuit will be left in very challenging circumstances. Many people delay families, children, home purchases, retirement savings, and other major things so that they can commit to this work. Would they make those sacrifices if there was a complete and full disclosure in detail of their real prospects? The fact that Rutgers (among other programs) seems to go out of its way to avoid providing that disclosure speaks volumes.

So, taking your comments charitably, I would suggest that in a forum like this one -- whose directive is connecting people who have already made the decision to apply to grad school -- defeatist comments are at best pointless and at worst needlessly destructive. We know what we're getting ourselves into. No, you most certainly do not know what you’re getting yourself into because by your own admission you have only been in graduate school for four years. You have not, for example, completed your PhD, published, taught adjunct, etc. I have. And let me tell you that the “profession” is a disaster. The fact that it’s threatening for you or people on this forum to be confronted with that reality is alarming. It’s a denial of reality, and it’s a denial of the experience of people who know better than you about it. It’s called putting your head in the sand. The reaction to Rutgers’s total obfuscation and falsification of the reality of its jobseekers is a case in point. You seem to acknowledge the problem and then try to excuse it. It does not take “awhile to get to that 87%.” It’s never going to happen; it’s a thing of the past when the program did place that many people. But it’s that very optimism—cruel optimism—that aids and abets in the deception. I’m well aware of the conference rhetoric about contingency, alt-act,etc. It doesn’t come close to dealing with the nature of the problem. There is no objective reason why anyone should think that there will be any significant improvement in the lack of tenure-tack jobs in English for the foreseeable future. And let’s remember what has happened: an already depressed job market before 2008 literally had the number of available jobs cut in half with numbers that continue to decline every year (the number of jobseekers, however, does not decrease). I totally disagree that forcing this confrontation is unproductive. We need a lot more of these confrontations. The tenured ranks have colluded in this disaster, and they continue to aid in the cover up. A program lying about its placement statistics is one such example. There are many more. The tenured faculty who recruit capable young people and persuade them to staff their graduate seminars and their writing programs know damn well that most of them will not find gainful academic employment after they graduate (let’s also acknowledge that over 50% will not even finish the program). I thought I was prepared for this reality too until I found myself in a nightmare situation where my PhD actively worked against my ability to find other employment, but again, these are the stories programs do not want you to hear. You can call me bitter, nihilistic, whatever. The facts are indisputable. Maybe some intrepid prospective students will start demanding more accountability from these programs. Maybe they’ll take a look behind the curtain and walk away. Maybe they’ll think twice or three times about the other opportunities around them and what might be sacrificed by participating in what has become a rancidly unfair and exploitative profession. I am not commenting on the quality of your scholarship or your teaching or somebody’s application; the problem has nothing to do with that, and I obviously have no idea. The problem is that young scholars in this profession now exist in a world almost totally stripped of opportunities, which means we cannot make a living doing our work. That is a total disaster for us. The illusion that many prospective students see is that their privileged mentors are making a living doing the same work; it’s disorienting, confusing, and misleading because they do not see the vast majority of people whose backs are under the feet of the people they admire. The fact that you cannot even bear to be confronted with the experience of someone who has gone through it all, suggests to me this kind of information is crucially important on a forum such as this one.

Oh lord. More inaccuracy about placement at Rutgers. I'm intimately familiar with the Rutgers program, and the 87% placement statistic is a bald-faced lie. It's inexcusable that the program still has this blatant falsehood on their website. it's tantamount to fraud. Go through the recent PhDs conferred by the program and see who does or does not have a job--and what that job might be. You'll quickly find that numerous placements are counted multiple times for the same person. I'd estimate the program's placement is now somewhere around 10% since hardly anybody is getting tenure-track employment. They're placing about one person a year in actual "domestic" tenure-track positions: i.e. not Turkey or elsewhere. They've tried to find contingent positions at Rutgers for recent grads such as teaching postdocs and admin positions, but there's only so much of that to go around, and those aren't permanent employment for the most part. However, we can't totally blame Rutgers since this is now true of virtually all the elite programs. Don't believe me? Go take a look at the academic jobs wiki. The profession has collapsed. Here is the stark reality of the profession you want to enter: https://www.mla.org/Resources/Career/Job-Information-List/Reports-on-the-MLA-Job-Information-List. You might also read: https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Moral-Stain-on-the/246197?cid=wcontentgrid_hp_2 https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Great-Shame-of-Our/239148 Among many others--

I'm not sure what KennethBurked is talking about: "Many English PhDs go to less respected programs and get tenured positions." This profession has collapsed and most recent English PhDs--from the top programs, no less--cannot find full-time academic employment. And will never find it. I know it feels bad to be rejected, but honestly, if you were hoping to get a PhD to become a Professor then you have been shown an act of mercy by the gods. It seems that many people on this forum have very little idea just how bad the situation has become for young humanities scholars. Sadly, they'll have to confront the reality at some point, and it will be a very rude awakening. The situation is a complete disaster, and I would strongly discourage even the most promising student of English from going to graduate school. You simply will not have a job that gainfully employs you at the end of it. Look at the MLA job placement graph: https://www.mla.org/Resources/Career/Job-Information-List/Reports-on-the-MLA-Job-Information-List. If you're so lucky to get one of the very few jobs, you will effectively become an adjunct manager in what has become a deeply unfair and exploitative system.

Unfortunately, I'm too late in seeing this thread, and the April 15th decision date has passed. I'm intimately familiar with the Rutgers program, and the 87% placement statistic is a bald-faced lie. It's inexcusable that the program still has this blatant falsehood on their website. it's tantamount to fraud. Go through the recent PhDs conferred by the program and see who does or does not have a job--and what that job might be. You'll quickly find that numerous placements are counted multiple times for the same person. I'd estimate the program's placement is now somewhere around 10% since hardly anybody is getting tenure-track employment. They're placing about one person a year in actual "domestic" tenure-track positions: i.e. not Turkey or elsewhere. They've tried to find contingent positions at Rutgers for recent grads such as teaching postdocs and admin positions, but there's only so much of that to go around, and those aren't permanent employment for the most part. However, we can't totally blame Rutgers since this is now true of virtually all the elite programs. Don't believe me? Go take a look at the academic jobs wiki. The profession has collapsed. For those of you attending Rutgers in the fall, try demanding some accountability from the DGS. It probably won't get you very far, but it will be a fair indication of the obfuscation and spin to come.